What is the difference between being a wheelchair user and being depressed?

You don't have to tell your mum you're a wheelchair user.


'Coming out' as mad. It can't be easy. I have been writing this morning about making reasonable adjustments for disabled people in Higher Education and tied in with that was thinking about whether we see disabled students as students first and then disabled. There is a definite push for this within the current research. It builds on ideas about inclusive cultures and making the education accessible for all and therefore not having to make reasonable adjustments for individuals. It makes sense when you think about it. Let us have an education that the majority of people can access, rather than an elite system that excludes people not because of their ability to learn, but rather their ability to engage with a curriculum that excludes them because of discriminatory practice. 


This led to me thinking about how we would know people were disabled if their conditions weren't physically apparent. Would we need to? Is there a sense of wanting to define as a disabled person because there is a sense of pride about it? I am running cras parallels with the gay community, but it is similar. No one needs to know you are gay (except perhaps your partner) but people are proud to come out and there is a political gain in doing so. Is it the same within the disabled community? Am I perhaps over simplifying?


This has really got me thinking about this idea of people/students with mental health issues constantly having to 'come out' in order to exist. If in order to exist and make noise about your experience you have to keep telling people what does this do to your identity? Does 'coming out' make it a bigger part of you than you would like it to be?


Whatever the motivation and overall result surely single instances of revealing the personal about yourself to colleagues, family and friends never gets any easier, especially when reactions are often of stepping back, reassessing you and never allowing you to mention it again.

Duck consultation

No really. 


Yesterday I was enjoying the bank holiday a little too much. We have had such glorious weather - it makes working so much harder. This morning it was lovely and sunny and so I took the PhD thoughts for a little walk. I was actually walking for a couple of hours but it was a gentle pace and there was a lot to see and think about.


The more I have read about methodologies the more I am understanding how deeply excluded people with mental health difficulties have been from their own categorization and research. There is a lack of an autonomous political movement surrounding mental health. Without this mental health is predominantly discussed by professionals with varying agendas of their own. 


I talked to the duck about this. His feelings were quite clear. He wanted his voice to be heard and he shouted loudly to tell me so.

After chatting to the duck for a while I went and hid out under a tree in full blossom. I wish this was a scratch and sniff screen because it smelt amazing.

So here to further pondering about my methodology. Whilst I am aware I will need to make a strong academic case for whichever I decide to choose my heart is pulling me towards a narrative approach. I want to give students who have experienced or are experiencing mental health issues the opportunity to tell me their story. I am not a counsellor, I don't want to hear these stories so I am able to in some way 'help'. I am conscious that this itself is not a positive position to take. Perhaps, it is in part the literature student (who is kept hidden from my social science colleagues, but is my background) screaming at me that all people's experiences are lived through their own story and this is where you uncover the most interesting details. I think it was also the duck quacking away at me, happily recounting his narrative, his story. I wish I spoke quack, he had a lot to say.

Take a bow

So today was the big presentation day of reckoning. Can I just say that before one presents their research I suggest the following:


1) Don't spend the night before on the phone to your ex wife for 2 hours
2) Don't sign mortgage papers in the morning
3) Avoid an hour with a student and her dad just beforehand discussing a quite serious and very complex disability related issue that has you almost in tears.


Simple advice but it might help, oh and WEAR PINK.


Today I was only giving a taster of the research. Perhaps I would have been better to give a link to the blog and then sip tea and let people read for themselves. I prepared a very brief overview of the project. As I have not collected any data yet I was conscious that although the research area is very interesting to me it may be less so to my audience and I wanted to keep people engaged. I had decided to focus on the methods, methodology, framework suggestions and an account of what has led me to this area of study.


I am not an academic member of staff and the audience was made up of academic colleagues and research students. First job is to shake the chip off your shoulder and stare through the invisible barrier and tell yourself you do deserve to be there. I hope I did that successfully and I have to say that the staff were incredibly supportive. They listened and didn't laugh and asked good questions afterwards. I was also lucky enough to get a couple of great suggestions. One of these was to do a pilot before I begin my first round of data collection. Embarrassed that I hadn't thought of this but I will definitely be testing out my questions now to ensure that I am asking the right things.


I think it went well. It is the first time I have presented my research and as someone who is never nervous of speaking in public I actually found it quite a challenge - it is different when it is your research you are opening to scrutiny. It has definitely made me want to present more. It is impossible to defend a position publicly, unless it is the right one and this is invaluable.


Afterwards a colleague popped to see me to discuss a couple of things I had mentioned and another colleague joined our 'corridor' discussion. The result was I was loaned a couple of books and had a chance to have a chat with people about their work and mine. Which leads me to conclude tonight that the best thing about today's experience was that I felt part of something and perhaps more importantly accepted as a part of it.


Thanks HLS :-)

Working Girl

In true Melanie Griffith style - I am 'letting the river run'. My metaphorical shoulder pads are in, my jaw is square and my lipstick is apricot. I have a fire in my belly and an attention to detail that will serve me well if Sigourney Weaver turns up and wants to take me on. In other words I have found my inner working girl and by god is she getting a little exposure.


My younger and much wiser sister said to me this evening, 'how long does a phd take?' to which I gave the obligatory ten minute waffle about 'life's work' and 'if one were able to do it full time' and 'striking a life balance being important'. To which she retorted - gesturing to all the paper scattered around me - 'and you have set yourself a three week deadline to do the entire thesis because...?'


I, of course, have not done this, but the last few weeks have seen a decided increase in my output. I have found my drive and this is an exciting, but dangerous place to be. You know when you start a really good book and by about page four you start to realise that your windows are not going to get cleaned and the shopping is not going to get done and you have no chance of an early night because every single spare minute is going to be taken up with devouring the delicious story, language, characters that are languishing behind page after page of recycled paper. Well that feeling is how my research has been going over the last few weeks and this weekend has been like the culminating drama of the closing chapters of a great novel.


My inner Working Girl has stepped up to the plate. She has cast Harrison Ford aside and stared down Sigourney, she has picked up her hem line and her focus and is strutting headlong into the credits. 


Basically, I have written a chapter - but to me this feels like I have just been given a corner office, all of my own, in a very tall city block.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096463/

A model experience

Today I have written nearly 4000 words. This is despite the glorious sunshine, despite the slight hangover and despite the computer crashing on me more than once (six times in fact - once with a total lack of auto-save recovery - mustn't dwell). Anyway the 'rug', as I have aptly named my temporary office, was a hive of activity today. 


I have been working on my models. Theoretical framework models that is. I am pleased to announce I have one. This has taken about a year. Which seems a long time, but the framework is so fundamental to the whole project that I am glad it has taken this long. When it clicks it clicks - it is like buying a house or falling in love - you just know.


For all those who are interested I have been using a Social Model approach to disability and like many I was getting bogged down in the subsequent arguments that follow in relation to the lived experience of impairment. By having a focus on mental health it has allowed me to move one step to the side and actually find a fresh angle worth stretching round for. 


Mental health is not the same ball game as disability, although there are welcome similarities. This new model places the service user at the centre of the conceptualisation of mental ill health. It moves away from diagnosis, treatment and recovery models which are positioned and pushed by professionals. In that regard it is similar to the Social Model of disability but it cannot be identical. As some service users identify a diagnosis can be hard fought over, it often offers a rational explanation for an individual's experiences and it is essential for accessing welfare support. 


This new model is exciting and new and is being developed by academics, practitioners and service users/non-users. It provides me with the perfect framework within which to position my research which is not about the causes and effects of mental health issues but how to make reasonable adjustments within an educational and training setting.


I have now cleared the rug of the days work in order to free up the space I need to jump around in excitement about this.


PS - check out the blog redesign - hope it meets with approval :-)

I love Saturday mornings

Do you know why? Simply because it is always peaceful and I always get stuff done. No one is up who makes lots of noise because they are sleeping off the racket they made on Friday night. Most people are walking their dogs, or wandering round their gardens, or just sipping tea and planning their weekends. 

Saturday morning is a wonderful time to be doing research. It is sunny today and I have managed to get a load done which means I am now allowed to go outside and sit in the sunshine and read my book for a bit. Marvellous. 

I want to update the blog on the work I have being doing over the last couple of days, but I am not quite ready to share it yet. Instead I will get on with the rest of my Saturday morning and come back later.

Go forth and present

So, I have agreed to present my research to my faculty next week. In one way this is a score because it is Easter and a lot of people will be away. In another way I should not be seeing the lack of audience participants as a good thing. I can't help it; beforehand I will be nervous and insecure and afterwards I am bound to wish there had been more people there! 


I have already prepared a couple of slides and seeing as I will only be talking for about 15 minutes it is not going to be too intense. I fully intend to make the best use of the sad ass people (myself included) who are not on their jollies next week and come along. It will be a good opportunity to get feedback from other students and colleagues. It will also be a good opportunity for me to defend my research. This will be invaluable I think. Learning to defend without being defensive. Hard work.


One thing I was concerned about was my methodology. My methodology is not rock solid. However a chat with my supervisor today has sorted this out in my head. It doesn't yet need to be set in stone. I've not collected my data and I will develop a strong methodology as I progress. I have a few ideas of what I don't want to use. COUGH COUGH Grounded Theory COUGH COUGH. I am taken with a discursive approach which suits the qualitative project, so we will see.


Presenting one's research is all the things it is supposed to be; terrifying, exhilarating, exhausting and utterly worthwhile. At worst it is a few minutes of feeling a little vulnerable at best a fantastic opportunity to think about communicating the ideas and processes behind your work to a captive audience, as opposed to having to hide the remote at home just so you can blather on to the cat about your latest chapter. 


I suppose it might be like watching your children in their first school play. You have nurtured and created and developed something that is incredibly important to you and then you introduce it to the world and open it up to criticism and opinion - brave and dangerous. Maybe I should present in front of a nativity scene dressed as a donkey...maybe not.

What do you do when it is obvious?

'For me, the beauty of (universal design approaches) is that an individual's impairment is not seen as a barrier but rather, the focus of how best that individual learns.'


Adams (2007) in a speech to Leeds Met.


I love this, but then I would.  Surely anyone who is involved in education of any sort would read this and think - yes, of course? This is what I am struggling with ce soir; I feel a little like I am cheating.


I am not locked in a lab somewhere frantically staring into petri dishes and happening across an amazing discovery. I am merely presenting a collection of theories and ideas that are a way of framing a concept. I personally believe that Higher Education is essential and that people shouldn't be excluded from the experience because of unnecessary barriers that are often institutional and sometimes attitudinal. However, I say this like no one else has thought this, like there is no one out there who would say they agreed, like I have discovered something on a petri dish. 


So how then does one not feel like they are in some way cheating a little bit?


I guess for me it has to come back to personal experience. Day in, day out I am presented with evidence that suggests to me in theory many may agree with the sentiment of inclusivity but they mean inclusivity for people who look, think or learn like them. It is frustrating that looking at how people learn and the diversity present in any classroom of students as brains process, hands scribble down notes, memories are stored - or not, is not something that always comes naturally to those in the business of educating. We seem to want people to learn as we do. To explain concepts as we would best understand them. To believe our way is not only the best way but the only way. Does it matter how you unscrew it as long as the lid comes off? Is it not more exciting that there are 25 different and inventive ways to free the jar? Yes, I hear you cry, yes it is OBVIOUS.


It is rather isn't it.

A Dedication

Tonight I am dedicating the blog to the national bureau of students with disabilities: SKILL. It has been announced that they have ceased operating today.

http://www.skill.org.uk/index.aspx

This is a charity that has been running since 1974. They have campaigned tirelessly for the rights of disabled students. They have worked with individuals, with groups, with organisations and with other charities. They have provided free information to disabled people and those professionals who work with them to help tackle the prejudice and barriers existent in society. 

Their closure will be a great loss to Universities who have worked with them on many a vital project. It is also a loss to students who lose those who advocated for them in the face of discrimination.

As Universities face 80% cuts and widening participation becomes a burden rather than a celebration it is a truly sad day when we watch a charity such as SKILL close its doors.

So a sincere thank you to all the staff at SKILL for their work over the last 37 years, it has not gone unnoticed. 

Right at the bottom

Tough reading tonight. I have downloaded about 25 articles on depression in the work place. Entirely relevant for the research and some key data and approaches are covered well by the authors, doesn't stop it being slightly glum reading though. Most of the articles I have accessed are not about personal experiences - that reading comes later - and that is oddly less gloomy. People's narratives are always full of strength even if they are talking about times when things may have been particularly difficult. There is a welcome voyeurism attached to  reading the personal stories of people; through their voices we learn about their experiences and from the way they choose to tell us we learn about their feelings towards these experiences - often we find more in the things they do not say. We dip momentarily into their life and their interpretation of it and we leave no footprint. We are not there to comment, console or correct. We are there to observe and to perhaps learn. Therefore we creep in and we creep out and those stories that touch us we think about in private later. The articles I have read today are different.


They are policy driven. They are interpretations of how legislation has been developed. They are suggested theory. They are statistics and they are depressing. They are not charting a human story, they are a representation of human failure in black and white. Failure of society to adequately legislate, failure to build an inclusive agenda, failure to develop and support a workforce that considers the mental health of its workers. Failure to engage with people's narratives to let them inform future agendas. Pages and pages written about stigma and discrimination. Coldly, starkly and matter of factly. Without the human element it is a long way down and a mountain to climb back up.


However, it must be read. Therefore I will approach it in the same way. Calmly and coldly. I will theme. I will table. I will order. Then I will take a bit of time to reflect and look up from the bottom every now and then to wave.

The power of a friendly cuppa

I had a meeting today with a work colleague. We were meeting to discuss a project we are both working on and we did indeed get to some session planning. However, over the hot tea, bought for me, I hasten to add, far more took place than I was expecting.

There is existing, unwritten support amongst new researchers. It is because the competition of being published and critiqued hasn't yet come to the fore; academic rivalry remains a distant dream. Young researchers (and I refer not to age here, but experience) are wonderful. We are keen and interested and honest and most importantly we are intrinsically and forcefully supportive of one another. This was my experience today. A meeting that should have started with a friendly 'how are you?', 'good thanks' and then turned to work took a different turn as I poured out the woes of my research methods. My colleague listened attentively and with real interest. Then sensitively got me to explain the background, where I saw myself and my participants within the research, how I felt about certain theories, my relationship with language, my politics until I stopped noticing the big flashing sign over my head that reads 'you were a humanities student you don't know anything about social research methods' and I talked about the things I understood about my methods and methodologies.

I was concerned, it turned out, more by the fact that I couldn't justify the methods I WASN'T going to use than the ones I was. I was terrified that I had missed out on some wonderful opportunity to use a particular method and that if challenged I wouldn't be able to defend my decision. My colleague was hugely understanding about this and without a whiff of a patronising sniff. There then followed a wealth of practical advice; some books to read, some names to look up, some ideas to toss around. Notes were scribbled down. Promises were made about emails. Tea went cold.

I realised as I sat in the cafe that this kind of support was, indeed is, invaluable. It isn't about presenting your findings to a supervisor, it isn't peer review, it isn't organised support networking – all which have their merits. No, today was about the power of research and the way that in any given moment ideas will grip us. If the idea is good then people will go out of their way to ensure that it isn't lost by a lack of confidence. As I talked about what I wanted to achieve it gripped my colleague sitting opposite me and then we worked on how to nurture it, to help it grow. The power of ideas is immense and when paired with a genuine desire to see people achieve it's unstoppable. The ability to foster that infectious spirit that all researchers share is a beautiful thing and should be treasured.

Let me please be able to repay this favour one day to someone else who needs it and let the tea be on me.

A guilty secret

Yesterday, I didn't do anything. Well nothing in relation to the PhD. I woke up feeling shall we say slightly wounded from my escapades the night before. I did put 'library search' on my to-do-list but it never came to anything. Today, however I am intending to do quite a bit. There is the new literature review to get cracking on and I am really excited about some of the reading I will have to grapple with over the next few months. I intend to make a nice long list and then divide it all up into themes, which will also help with the actual writing of the review. 

It does occur to me though how quickly researcher guilt descends. One day I had off. One day where I didn't pick up a book, or put pen to paper or even give some thought to my data collection. I have heard people say that they never stop thinking about their research - I think that is in part academic pretension and partly answering back to the little voice of the niggling guilt that lives within us all. There are times when I do find my mind wandering and thinking about my research when I am doing something else, this is only to be expected when you spend so much of your time focussed on something. However, I have times when I don't think about it all - during the Coronation street omnibus or whilst singing karaoke - which is entirely appropriate. It interests me though that having spent a day not doing anything on the research it does feel a bit like one is turning up to double maths having not done the homework. 

One of the major differences between a long piece of research like a PhD is the lack of the sense of completion. Nothing gets 'handed in' or marked and can then be laid to rest, it is relentlessly continuous. This is of course, also one of the absolute joys of research that you get to stay with a project, spend time getting to know it, work on it, change it, but it does mean that when you have a day off it makes it harder to justify to yourself. Even now I am thinking that today I will somehow have to redeem myself after yesterday and will put in an extra hour or so to relieve the guilt. Perhaps though I was lying about not thinking about it all yesterday, I did stand my cup of coffee on 'Foucault and the Government of Disability' - surely that counts for something? No?